toes
by trypophobica
Summary: or, the one where a camping trip ends very awkwardly. just fluff and silliness, basically


**A/N: **sup, guys? i know i dont post a lot but im trying to get back into it. i woke up in a drunken, olive-oil induced stupor this morning and decided i would try and see where my mental diarrhea would take me. here is the product of that.

* * *

_oh, you capture my _**attention** ;  
_carefully listening **,**_  
_don't wanna miss a thing **;**_  
_keeping my eyes on y_**o**_u ._

* * *

"Fuck!" You angrily slap at your sides as you feel the soft pinprick of a mosquito feeding on your blood for the five thousandth time tonight. As if you needed anything more to scratch. Frustrated, you dig into the side of your legs with your nails, scratching up and down very, very harshly over the volley of bumps that had formed thanks to said insect. You wince and then let out a low whimper as you feel your skin breaking due to your actions, and the sticky sensation of your own pus and blood greets your fingertips. Disgusted and in pain, you retract your hand and curl it into your chest, feeling your knuckles drain of colour just as you were draining of patience. You really never were one for camping, and cursed yourself harshly for allowing your friends to drag you into this(in all fairness, it is virtually **impossible **to say no to three puppy pouts). You bring your knees to your chest and pull the painfully small blanket you have over yourself, hoping it will keep the demons away.

It doesn't, and you soon feel the oh-so-familiar pricking sensation again. Again. Again.

It's going to be a long night, you think to yourself begrudgingly, sitting up to go and get some more mosquito repellant. Being the ever-prepared person you were, you had brought two cans of spray and two topical creams. Of course they both turned out to be completely useless, but there was something comforting in the feeling of smelling like toxic chemicals that you couldn't get enough of. You slowly pull yourself to your feet and begin to stalk over to the two backpacks that were neatly tucked into the corner of the tent. You grab the considerably larger one(yours) and zip it open quietly, pulling out both of the aerosol cans and dousing yourself thoroughly from head to toe. If it didn't repel the mosquitoes, it certainly did a good job making your legs burn like they were being pelted by white hot cinders. You hiss like a broken valve on an oxygen canister and, doing your best not to scratch your legs, begin to tiptoe back to your sleeping area. As you're making the journey aross the tent, you almost trip on your roommate and flinch slightly, his existence having completely slipped your mind. You look down at him, peaceful and still under his considerably more comfortable sleeping arrangements and sigh. Why couldn't you have remembered to bring a sleeping bag like he had?

You sit down on the floor of the tent, just plop on down right next to him and watch him intently. You watch the gentle falling and rising of his chest, observe the gentle, occasional twitches of his fingers and the ghost of a smile as it appeared and dissappeared constantly on his face.

_Look at that lucky bastard,_ you can't help but think. _Fucking always remembering the obvious things._

And it was true. Every camping trip(so many of them there had been, and yet you never learned), every vacation, every outing in general was the same: you always nitpicked over the details, tried to pack for the worst-case scenario, and there was James, always remembering the bigger, way more obvious things. Like a proper sleeping bag, for example.

There's something so serene, so calming about watching your friends sleep and you realise the longer you stare, the more the burning pain in your epidermis dulls out, turning into a hollow throbbing that reverberates gently through your bones and the back of your mind. You almost want to touch him, just run your hand along his cream-coloured cheek, ruffle his brown sugar-spun hair to see weather he's actually real or not. But you don't. You lean back and train your gaze on him, feeling the solace he must be feeling transfer into your own body. The longer you stare, the more you become entranced in a reverie, feel your eyes become glazed with awe and disfocus. You don't notice it when James begins to stir, but you _do_ notice it once he screams femeninely, causing you to jump three feet into the air. His breathing is laboured with distress, and with each heavy breath, guilt rakes its claws down your sides.

"What the fuck, Logan?!" James cries hysterically, because seeing one of your friends watching you sleep is not an ideal thing to wake up to. You sit up straight and your mouth lets loose stammer after broken statement after stammer as you try to think of a good excuse, a good save to get you out of this situation.

"I.. I couldn't sleep." You finally stammer out.

"So you watched _me_ do it?!" James whisper-yells, sleep deprivation and shock causing his pupils to be blown wide and open with shock, drawing you in and causing you to lean slowly towards him. Nervously, you rub the back of your neck and look to the floor. James goes off on a rant about how he needs his beauty sleep, especially because he was planning on waking up to prank Kendall and Carlos in the other tent before sunrise, and you try to listen, you really do, but you just couldn't care less about how if James didn't get a good 10 hours in, he would wake up with bags and something about how you have to look handsome to prank your friends. You have no idea, you've tuned him out by now. You pause, thinking of a good statement to interrupt him with, and before you even have a chance to double-check that it's a good idea, your verbal diaherra is taken to the extreme.

"I was gonna ask if I could sleep with you." Well, that was one way to go about it. Even you yourself are surprised at the words that come out of your mouth, probably more surprised than James, who stopped mid-rant and stared at you with his mouth hanging slightly open. Your mouth suddenly felt dry, but despite that, your reflexes quickly come to the rescue.

"I mean, because I forgot a big blanket and I.. I am being eaten_ alive _by mosquitoes!" He still doesn't respond, and your heart jumps up into your throat. _Fuck me_. You quickly apologize and start to make your way back to your 'bed', when suddenly you feel a hand on your shoulder.

"W-wait!" You turn around and James' face is incredibly close to yours- so close you can feel his breath tickle your lips. You swipe your tongue over them instinctively and swear you can taste cotton candy under the overpowering chemical taste of instect repellant. You try to look anywhere but into his eyes, but it's like a magnetic pull and you're soon staring into the beautiful galaxy that hid behind James Diamond's very own chocolate browns.

"If.." James begins slowly, but swallows loudly mid-sentence. "If you want, you can.. Because you know.. malaria."

"Y-yeah! Malaria." You both smile awkwardly at each other, not sure weather you want to relish the closeness or get out of it as soon as possible. Fortunately, James decides for you and opens the sleeping bag up, folding overthe top and patting the space next to him invitingly. You slowly wiggle your way into it and zip it closed, snuggling into the soft material as best as you can without touching James. Said pretty boy had no comments to add, except a mere "Goodnight," Which you returned courteously.

You tried to sleep, you really did, but you could feel sparks inside of your chest threatening to overflow, to set your heart ablaze. You were anxious, too anxious to stop thinking and certainly too anxious to sleep. Every time you'd almost get there, almost extinguish the supernova building inside of you, James would shift slightly and graze a trail up your back with his arm, or breathe down your neck, or worst of all, brush his.. his _unmentionables_ against your rear end, and all your progress would diminish, sending a shower of stars from that point out to the rest of your body, making it feel intensely chilled and fire hot at the same time. Why was James having this effect on you? You ruled out the possibilities of James being part alien, part fairy and part wizard- part anything except European, really, and then began to think about medical diseases. The most obvious option would be a skin disease of some sort- maybe scabies or something similar. _No,_ you think. _He's wearing long sleeves, but I still feel like he's rubbing ice blocks down my back._ Could it be that James was part android, and he was shocking you? _No_. You correct yourself again, facepalming. If James was an android, he would have captured you by now.

But the more pressing issue was, if James wasn't part robot or part unicorn or crawling with mites, what was the issue? There had been one very, very obvious solution itching at the back of your mind, and it was not something you even wanted to think about. But the more you tried to desperately find a logical explanation, the more you realised you already had one.

And quite frankly, you hated it.

You decide that it's not a matter to think about at night, and that maybe with a good night's sleep, the condition would go away by morning. You know what? You bet that's what it's been this whole time. Sleep deprivation was just playing tricks on you.

Content with this newfound knowledge, you snuggle into your pillow, away from James, and begin to drift off.

* * *

The sun was still not up yet, but that didn't mean that a certain pair of earthlings weren't. A lanky blond and a round-faced hispanic were up bright and early at 4AM, shuffling around quietly in their tent and gathering things together.

"Do you think they're up yet?" Carlos asked quietly, looking over at his friend for affirmation. It wasn't out of the question that Logan and James could be up at the same time, doing the exact same things that they were doing at this time of hour. Kendall turned to look at Carlos for a moment and seemed to be mulling it over before shaking his head confidently.

"They're probably out like lights right now- you know they're insomniacs." The latino nodded and they continued with their business.

Miinutes later, they were prepped with the old but gold: Kendall was equipped with a two bottles of whipped cream, a large faux feather, an air horn, three rolls of duct tape, a small jar of fake cockroaches and other various pranking apparatus. Carlos held a pair of small garden snakes in his hand, which he had sneaked into his backpack the night before. By work of fate they were still alive. They opened their tent quietly and stepped out, the light of impending dawn silhouetting them against the horizon.

"Ready?" Kendall whispered to his partner in pranks. The shorter boy nodded, and off they went. They slinked towards the other boys' tent, and slowly zipped it open. Stepping in as quietly as they could, Kendall gestured towards the backpacks in the corner of the room, which Carlos slowly went off to, snakes in hand. Kendall went to Logan's side of the room, prepared to duct tape his friend down to the floor. Surprisingly, Logan wasn't in his bed. Where had he gone off to? He scanned the room and shrugged, deciding that pranking the James was good enough for him. He snuck over to the sleeping bag and noticed immediately that James wasn't alone. It wasn't surprising that Logan had gone to share the sleeping bad with James, given his compromising sleeping arrangements earlier, but what _was _surprising was that James had an arm around Logan and the two were spooning hardcore. Unsure of what to do in the situation, Kendall beckoned his partner over and the two stared down at their friends for what seemed like the longest time. Their facial expressions changed from confusion, to realisation, to exitement to smug smirks.

"What do we do?" The shorter boy whispered, looking to his taller friend for guidance.

"We should probably leave them be- wait, wait, _wait_!" Kendall whispered exitedly. "Do you have your phone?" They shared a look of knowing and grinned exitedly, pulling Carlos' phone out and snapping numerous pictures and even a short video of the cute spectacle. After Carlos put his phone in his pocket, they stood for a few more minutes just watching them sleep and discussed what to do.

"Are they dating?" Carlos asked.

"I hope so, we've been seeing this coming for _way_ too long."

"Are they going to tell us?"

"We don't even know if they're dating or not, Carlos."

As they got more and more focused on their conversation, they began to pay less and less attention to the two sleeping boys, until something brought them back to them:

"**WHY DO PEOPLE KEEP WATCHING ME SLEEP?!**"

* * *

_oh, you c_apt_ure my at_ten_tion _**,**  
_i'm_ {anticipating} **;**  
_i'm _**watch**ing_, i'm _**wait**ing  
_for you to make your move **.**_

* * *

**A/N:** And there ya have it, folks. I think this was ok. :\


End file.
